I played this game growing up, I actually was playing it when 2000 hit on new years when I was maybe ten years old. The combination of planet management, and the art for ships/buildings/tanks was just awesome for the time and I really enjoyed it. Replaying it so long later I enjoyed it just as much. If you enjoy building colonies, and space and ground battles, this is a fun one. The campaign becomes a bit of a grind and there are a lot of interesting aliens/factions you'll rarely get to interact with as the big baddies wreck everyone but you pretty quickly. Still, I enjoyed it a lot. Compared to IG 2, I much prefer the graphics for this game, the ship designs were awesome, and the different buildings for different races were pretty cool. Ultimately, if the art of this game was combined with the gameplay of IG 2, that would have been pretty sweet. I've always dreamed of an IG 3, oh how I would love to be involved in that.
This was a really fun game growing up. They took the concept of IG 1 and made the space battles a lot more visually stunning, though the tank battles suffered some IMO as compared to the original, even though there were more interesting customizations possible. Space battles with fighters zooming about skirmishing is pretty sweet, though I'd like to see more fighters of all the different types on the screen for a more chaotic (and system taxing) experience. I always thought it was weird that you'd have the top tier fighters but in battles they show as tier 1. Colony management is easier with auto build now, and the black market/ship design makes for a lot of interesting ship/fleet/tank types. I do the art was generally a little better in the first game, if not in actual combat. I also wish the colony art was different for different factions, but alas. The addition of spies was also interesting and helpful, or a big thorn in the side. But sending out spies to try and sabotage or assassinate enemies was another intriguing layer.
